Ashcroft's acolytes

This is genuinely frightening - and it's exactly the kind of thing we warned about under the John Ashcroft view of what constitutes "free speech."

Des Moines, Iowa (AP, February 7) - In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.

The range of the subpoena is quite broad. It demands records of

the request for a meeting room, "all documents indicating the purpose and intended participants in the meeting, and all documents or recordings which would identify persons that actually attended the meeting."

It also asks for campus security records "reflecting any observations made of the Nov. 15, 2003, meeting, including any records of persons in charge or control of the meeting, and any records of attendees of the meeting"

as well as all records it has relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which sponsored the forum, which took place on November 15.

In addition, four of the activists who attended have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury on Tuesday.

Moreover,

officials of Drake, a private university with about 5,000 students, refused to comment Friday, including school spokeswoman Andrea McDonough. She referred questions to a lawyer representing the school, Steve Serck, who also would not comment.

A source with knowledge of the investigation said a judge had issued a gag order forbidding school officials from discussing the subpoena.

And just who the hell were they afraid would find out? And why would they care? But in an atmosphere where under the law people can be put in jail for telling you the feds were asking about you, an atmosphere of CAPPS II and data-mining, of "free speech zones" and "enemy combatants," it probably seemed entirely reasonable and natural to try to impose a veil of secrecy over the matter.

After all, what rights do people have to know what the government is doing, anyway? Hah? Where does it say that in the Constitution? And none of your "interpretation" or "same thing" bull like you tried to pull with "imminent," I mean those words. Hah? Where? Where?

Footnote: The article says

Mark Smith, a lobbyist for the Washington-based American Association of University Professors, said he had not heard of any similar case of a U.S. university being subpoenaed for such records.

Why is it that when it's for a group like the AAUP, it's "lobbyist" but when it's for some corporate front group or another it's "representative" or "spokesperson?"